Porter Family History, Part 2

JM: You must have been doing some civic things. You said, is that when you got involved with the Masons?
DP: I uh, Damn, I’m ashamed of myself now. I can’t even tell when I joined the Masons. ’62?
JP: No
DP: No?
JP: We just barely got married in ’62. I don’t remember what year you became a Mason. You worked very hard in it. He was secretary over there from . . .
DP: Fifteen years
JP: Yeah
JM: Originally, the Masons were up at Holbrook or Winslow or someplace.
DP: Well, they’re still there, yeah.
JM: Were you going there when they moved down?
DP: No, huh uh, we started at this Lodge here, yeah.
JM: Do you know Hal Butler?
DP: Oh yeah! Yeah.
JM: He told me that he was involved when it was up there as well.
DP: Yeah, in Holbrook, yeah, but he, Hal belongs here.
JP: I’m trying to remember when you became a Mason.
DP: I was Grand Master in 1990.
JM: That was 17 years ago.
DP to JP: ’72?
JP: It might have been in the ‘70s
DP: Yeah, I think it was in ’72 when I went in. A real dear friend of mine by the name of Jim Clark, J.R. Clark, he lives in Albuquerque. They lived over there in New Mexico. Anyway, when my dad died he had a Masonic service. I wasn’t a Mason then.
JM: But your dad was.
DP: Yeah, and so they had Masons out of Silver City and Masons out of Magdalena did the Masonic service for him, you know. And so when it was all over we -- my sister-in-law, my oldest brother and his wife, they had kind of a family meeting, like after a funeral, you know. And so this friend ours, J.R. Clark. All of us Porter boys were lined up out on the. It was in wintertime but the weather wasn’t too bad. But anyway, we were out there along the fence, you know. And he walked up to us and he said, “You dirty bunch of so-and-sos!” And boy, I just stopped like that. “You ought to be ashamed of yourselves!” And I don’t know whether it was my oldest brother or next to him. He said, “What the hell do you mean?” He said, “There at that burial for you dad. That was old brother Masons from Silver City and Magdalena came down here to give him a Masonic burial and there wasn’t a damned one of you there with an apron on.” So I got one pretty quick! Yeah.
JM: How do you become a Mason? Can you just join up or do you have to be sponsored, or what?
DP: Well, you have to ask. At least, that’s the way it used to be. I’m not real sure anymore. You don’t solicit. You become a Mason on your own free will and accord. You ask for an application and, you know, they investigate you. They don’t do near as good a job nowadays as they used to.
JM: What’s the difference between a Mason and a Shriner?
DP: The Shrine does a lot of good. You know, I give them credit for that. And I probably shouldn’t say this, but when you become a Shriner, you lose a lot of Masonry. That’s my opinion only. You know, I don’t have.
JM: It’s just different.
DP: Well, you know they do an awful lot, cripple children’s hospitals and things like that. They do a lot of good. But I could never be a Shriner.
JM: Well, I guess you don’t have to be; you can be what you want to be.
DP: That’s right, that’s right, yeah. Master Mason, that’s as far as I’m concerned that’s the highest degree in Masonry is when you become a Master Mason.
JM: Well, there have been some great men in the United States that were Masons.
DP: Oh you bet, yeah, you bet.
JM: I think George Washington was one, wasn’t he?
DP: Sure was! You betcha
JM: Was Benjamin Franklin one?
DP: Yep he was.
JM: I thought so, I wasn’t sure.
DP: Have you ever been back East to Washington Memorial? We’ve been fortune enough to see. When I was Grand Master we did a lot of traveling, didn’t we, Dear?
JM: That kept you busy?
DP: Oh yeah, well, we ran a business and
JM: Did you have family? Did you have kids too?
JP: We had one boy.
DP: Yeah
JM: What’s his name?
JP: Michael Allen
JM: Is he here in this area?
JP: He’s in New York
JM: Oh, my gosh!
DP to JP: Have you got a picture of him?
JP: It’s right here, Honey.
DP: I was wondering about the other two also.
JP: There’s his five boys.
JM: Nice guy! He had five boys?
JP: Yes
JM: Why, he kept the family tradition going here, huh?
DP: He inherited three of them and then he had twins.
JP: He inherited two! Dear! He had Matthew
JM: These two look like the mother here. Are those the ones that he inherited?
JP: No, these two little creeps right down here.
JM: Oh! Those are the twins though aren’t they?
JP: And this boy is from his first wife, then he adopted these two.
JM: Okay, are they related? I mean they look alike.
JP: They’re brothers.
JM: I mean they look like her.
JP: Yeah, they’re her children
JM: Okay, you said adopted. Well, it’s a nice mix! All boys.
JP: He’s sure done a good job with them, I’ll tell you. This boy here, we’ve been praying and carrying on. He has lymphoma.
DP: We about lost him.
JP: He just got out last Sunday, out of the hospital, and he has to take chemotherapy treatments. A pretty good guy!
JM: Yes, it looks like a good family. So you raised your boy here in Show Low and he went to Show Low High School and all that?
DP: Yep
JP: He was an
DP: All-star catcher. State
JP: State
DP: Allstate catcher
JM: Sports! Were you into sports too?
JP: My dad was.
DP: Her dad was. He almost made what? Tried out for the Cardinals, wasn’t he?
JM: Did your son go to college?
JP: He started at Prescott and he and his girlfriend had Matthew, and they got married. And then they got a divorce. We belong to the Mail Carriers Association and we took him everywhere we went and to all the national meetings, and he met this girl from New York. Her dad was a member of the Mail Carriers. And they got married and had had those two boys. Now he has one graduated from Tempe last year and he’s got one graduating. My son's going to New Mexico . . .
JM: That’s an investment! All those tuitions!
DP: Yep
JP: He works for his father-in-law. He’s a mail carrier also.
DP: Something that is really interesting, you know, was in 1967 a huge snowstorm. Have you heard people talk about that? Sixty-seven inches in Show Low. Snow piled down the middle of the streets, you know? About 15 feet high, and you couldn’t see even a tractor-trailer on the other side of that pile of snow.
JM: I’ll bet it was fun hauling the mail then!
DP: Yeah
JP: We’d get up every morning and all the trucks were stuck.
JM: Did it just dump all at once?
JP: No, it snowed for two weeks.
DP: Yeah, about two weeks. Oh God, it was terrible. My wife and I took the first bread into Winslow and Holbrook after 10 days of no bread.
JP: He had been working around the clock for days and days. And so we went to Globe and got it. They brought it to Globe. And he couldn’t drive any longer. So I steered the truck and he shifted when I needed.
JM: Oh, my gosh! You’re coming up through the Salt River Canyon?
DP: Yep, right there in the Salt River Canyon!
JM: In all that snow and ice? Oh!
JP: We went to Winslow like that. He’d shift and I was in the driver’s seat. He was worn out. He was so tired.
JM: You were hauling bread? Why bread instead of mail?
JP: Well, they hired us to take the bread because we had a big enough truck. That was besides the mail. That was just the (giggles).
DP: Yeah, we done it all.
JP: We hauled all the papers up here too.
DP: Yeah
JM: So Winslow and Holbrook was snowed in as bad, because that’s, well that was before Highway 40, right? It was just Route 66. The trains from there? You would think that they would be more accessible than Show Low!
JP: Yeah, you would have thought it, but they didn’t have any bread 10 days wasn’t it? I can’t remember.
JM: And those little old ladies couldn’t remember how to make bread?
DP: Well, you know they had, the stores, they kind of rationed stuff on their own, you know. We had Nicks
JM: Nick’s Market, yeah?
JP: Nick’s Market and Kings Market.
DP: Nick’s Market and Kings Market -- that was it!
JP: We had drivers staying in our home that couldn’t get home. It was awful!
DP: The next I say here to talk about is Show Low City Park. They first had commissioners.
JM: Right, there was like five of them, wasn’t there?
DP: I went to Washington D.C. to see about getting, you know where the City Park is out here now? Yeah, I grew up over in New Mexico and one of the families over there, well they had been involved with the Forest Service for a long time. Anyway this one, of the Schneider family. I went to Washington DC and I convinced the United States Forest Service, in particular, the head forester, Bill Schneider. He was the head forester of the whole Forest Service of the United States. He came from Reserve, New Mexico. I convinced Head Forester Bill Schneider to make a land exchange so we could obtain the City Park land. That’s how come we got that part out there. And we, you might say we stole it, you know, really.
JM: Okay! You might say that?
DP: Because they had to have equal acreage, you know? So there was a piece of land out, do you know before you get to Pinedale?
JM: Oh, I would say, you should give them Clay Springs! I’d give them Clay Springs!
DP: Yeah! But anyway, they had a, there was a piece of land out there that they would swap, acre for acre. And so that’s, I forget now, do you remember how much we had to pay for that? It almost made me feel bad, because we stole it, really you might say.
JM: Well, they probably saw it that it was inevitable that Show Low was going to be growing.
DP: But we got that, I got that piece of land out there and we had an even swap. We got Show Low City Park for that land out there by Clay Springs/Pinedale.
JM: Probably the stuff that the Rodeo-Chedeski burned up.
DP: Well, we uh, talk about that Rodeo-Chedeski. We’d been carrying the mail from Show Low to Cibecue since 1962, and the guy that set that fire. The Indian that set it, they caught up there by the rodeo grounds at Cibecue and then the Chedeski part was set by this camper. She set a fire to try to get their attention? She got their attention all right? What was it, 365,000 acres something or other that?
JP: It was awful
JM: So did they put you on the Commission, or did they?
DP: I don’t even, let’s see, who was it that talked me into running? We each had a you know, certain. . .
JM: Something that you were over. I see.
JP: Yes
DP: Yeah
JM: You got their attention by working on the Park.
DP: Uh hum, yeah I was
JM: That’s a nice park. People use it a lot.
DP: Yeah, it is, yeah. I served on the City Council for 8 years, the last 2 as mayor of Show Low. I improved the water and sewer system and improved streets when funds were available.
JM: And this was in the 60’s or 70’s?
DP: Uh, later 60s. I don’t know, a period there of several years. I along with other citizens built the Little League and Senior League parks. APS furnished the poles and Buck Sumerlin, have you ever heard that name? Sumerlin? They still live here in town, did the wiring. Are you familiar with the park out here?
JM: Uh huh
DP: Do you know down below where the ball field is there? Anyway, I can’t think of that guy’s name that laid all those blocks for us. You know, we did all that with – you know you’d ask somebody it they would help you out and they would. There were only two enemies I made. I won’t mention any names, but there were two women. I coached their kids. They’d come along the first baseline, you know. We had a fence but they’d, and they’d bitch and holler and bitch and holler. And finally, one day I told them. I said, “You know what?” I went down there. “If you’re so damned smart, you just get your asses up there and you manage that team and you practice them and everything.” I said, “I’m clear up to here with you! Either do something or get the hell out of here!”
JM: And take your kids with you! So you were an umpire or you were a coach?
DP: Yeah
JM: And you coached baseball, or softball, I mean?
DP: Baseball
JM: Baseball
DP: Uh hum. I, along with other citizens, built the Little League and Senior League parks. APS furnished the poles and Buck Sumerlin did the wiring. Mr. Henry Freeze put in many, many hours overseeing the park, games, umpires and anything else that we needed. He was a Mexican fellow, wasn’t he?
JP: He was Mexican. His business was carpet. He sold carpet and laid it.
DP: Yeah, but I wanted to get his name in there because he did . . .
JM: Over and above
DP: Yeah, he sure did! Yeah, he and Buck Sumerlin also. APS, we did a little arm-twisting. They brought poles up and set them.
JM: That’s a major expense.
DP: Yeah, and Buck climbed up there and did all the wiring. That was a community effort. Then I followed Dave Foil as mayor, and Joy Harding followed me as first lady mayor, first and only, I guess. See, they live right behind.
JM: Right behind you! Did she live there then? Have you lived here a long time?
JP: No. Well, since 1990
JM: Oh! Well, that’s a while, 17 years.
JP: Yeah, that’s true. We were behind our business many years, White Mountain Passenger Lines.
JM: Off of Hall
DP: Yep, this house sat back down there behind the . . .
JM: Oh this it? You moved it up here. Wow, that solves that problem, huh?
DP: And we added to it, you know.
JM: Yeah, its very comfortable looking.
DP: Do you know Joy Harding?
JM: No. She’s down in Mesa, you say? They winter there?
JP: They’re down there now. It’s a beautiful home here.
DP: Yeah, they’re good neighbors, really good neighbors. Joy and I had that connection there with the City.
JM: Was she on the Council before as well?
DP: Yeah
JM: I’m not sure how they make mayors here.
DP: Well, it used to be, you know, you let everybody run for Council, then the Council would elect the mayor, see. But now, then they . . .
JP: That was just since Fernau, isn’t it?
JM: Just since Fernau?
JP: Yeah, just since him, I think.
DP: Yeah, yeah I think so.
JP: That they elect the mayor?
DP: Yeah, elect the mayor. I liked the other way better, myself.
JM: Were the Council knew they were going to get somebody they could work with.
DP: Yeah
JM: And then there’s the City Manager, too, right?
DP: Yeah, who was our first City Manager, do you know? The mayor was the manager.
JM: Were you the manager as well?
DP: Oh yeah, yeah when I was . . .
JP: The boss
DP: Boss! Yeah! I think it’s a mistake, myself, but anyway, a lot of people aren’t going to agree with this, but I think Show Low and its citizens were happier, safer and more prosperous than we are today.
JM: I don’t know what the idea is for keeping it with no industry up here. What’s the idea, just to make it a retirement community?
DP: I guess! We sure don’t have any industry!
JM: You have to bring your own money to live here.
DP: Yeah, we fortunate. We have
JP: Yeah, we were boss!
JM: Yeah! Nobody could fire you! Well, the U.S. Government, I guess, but.
JP: We put in the hours though.
DP: You bet!
JP: 6 to 6:30
JM: It’s good that you both worked it together so. You wouldn’t have made it otherwise. So, did you learn to drive the big rigs -- other than with him shifting?
JP: I drove; I helped him out, you know. And when the boys that signed up to go to the Service, he’d take a bus and I’d take a car. I had a mail route too, I had from here to what was it? Forest?
DP: Forestdale
JM: Forestdale? Down the road here?
JP: On the Rim. Yeah, I went to Cibecue, just . . .
JM: You said it was White Mountain Passenger Lines, so that’s the one that – isn’t there still one running?
JP: Uh huh
JM: That’s the one that goes down to Whiteriver and circles.
JP: They don’t have as many routes as we did.
JM: There’s a route that came up from Globe. That’s how you came to Show Low from Globe on the bus, wasn’t it.
JP: On the truck, double-seated truck.
JM: No, I mean for passengers.
JP: Oh, well we had uh, passengers rode that double-seated truck.
JM: Did they really?
DP: Oh yeah
JP: Oh, we had a big truck! And it had two seats, and we could haul. Then we had a route that went from, you know, here to Phoenix, on in to Phoenix.
JM: You ran the truck too, hauling the mail too.
JP: It was on a van. We had a bunch of seats.
DP: I did a rough estimate here not too long ago that the best that I can figure is I’ve got over 6 million miles and not a chargeable accident.
JM: That’s great!
DP: Yeah
JM: That is great. That’s very fortunate.
DP: Did you look at my Bible over there?
JM: No, this big one?
DP: Yeah, that’s my Porter Family Bible.
JM: Oh! It’s got all the skinny in it.
DP: You look in there. It goes way back to
JM: It looks like an old one all right.
DP: Oh, it is! Yeah.
JM: Let’s see, I’ll have to look between Malachi and Matthew to get the good stuff. I shouldn’t say that, it’s all good stuff.
DP: Look in the front.
JM: So you go to a church?
DP: Well, not as often as we should. My wife’s a Baptist and I was kind of a Methodist, you know, so we, but we consider ourselves Christians. Look at some of those signatures.
JM: Oh yeah, yep, those are, it goes and goes and goes! 1803! Wow! And that’s on your mother’s side – there’s Cook, not Camp, but Cook. You could have been a Cook! It doesn’t say where though, that would have been an important thing.
DP: They all migrated out here from North Carolina and Tennessee, my dad’s. My mother’s, oh let’s see, New Mexico, over around Roswell and in there.
JM: So when they all came, they came a big extended family came?
DP: Well, the Porters, my Grandpa and Grandma Porter came out. I think they were about the only ones that came out. My grandmother on my mother’s side, Grandma Gamble, she had a boardinghouse at Lincoln.
JM: In New Mexico? Lincoln County?
DP: The town of Lincoln, you know. Anyway, she ran this boarding house and served a couple meals a day, you know, like maybe breakfast and supper I guess. Of course, nobody had dinner then, you know, it was just
JM: Supper!
DP: Breakfast, dinner and supper, you know! Grandma Gamble used to tell the story about she had uh. You’ve heard about Billy the Kid haven’t you?
JM: I was going to ask you that! He’s famous for Lincoln, New Mexico!
DP: Yeah! Right yeah!
JM: Yes, 1885 I think
DP: Well, she, yeah, see uh, she served him meals!
JM: I’ll bet she did. I’ll bet he came and went there. She knew that other guy too, uh, what was his name that shot him? Garrett! Pat Garrett!
DP: Yeah, Pat Garrett! He was the sheriff.
JM: He was the one that shot Billy the Kid.
DP: Yeah!
JM: So he was the sheriff of that area so she knew him too!
DP: Yeah! Grandma, she served meals see, because she’d lost her, Indians had killed her husband. She was at Roswell and her husband had gone out hunting or whatever. Anyway, he never did come back. His horse came back and then they figured it out that the Indians had got him. So she opened this boarding house. She told the story about, I think she was feeding six guys. She had seven pork chops on, you know. So, she served beans and some kind of meat, you know, and of course, biscuits and all this stuff. Anyway, she told the story about this. In the summertime it was kind of warm and she had the windows open. Everybody was eating and there was one pork chop left on the plate. So the wind blew the lamp out and when they lit the lamp and one guy had six forks in his hand! (Laughter)
JM: He grabbed and they stabbed!
DP: What else can I tell you about?
JM: What else is there?
JP: The Board of Directors of the Mail Carriers Association. He is Sectional Director. He is over 8 states, right? And he had to make these presentations twice a year, Spring and Winter/Fall. And he would have to go to these meetings, state meetings.
JM: Like all over the West Coast someplace? Was it West Coast?
DP: Mountain area
JM: Mountain area?
DP: Colorado, Wyoming, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico.
JP: Maybe it was 6, okay. We done a lot of travel for the organization and then he was working his way up to be Grand Master all over the country. We had a, we really had a good life. I mean we just!
JM: Yeah, you were travelers! Even when you were home you were traveling.
JP: I guess! I don’t know how we did it all.
JM: And you’re still doing it too, huh? So, you retired from being the mayor.
DP: Oh, yeah, I haven’t been on the Council for a long time.
JM: I learned something about you! When you became the mayor, then that was when David Foil was running for reelection and you tied. And the story is that you played the card game again? The Show Low card game that, and we see that the winner wasn’t Foil, so it must have been you!
DP: Show low and take it!
JM: So you pulled the low card! Was it a deuce?
DP: Deuce of clubs! (Laughter)
JM: It really was! Oh, my gosh! That’s so unique for Show Low, you know, to solve problems!
DP: Oh yeah! Yeah, Dave and I, we’ve been friends for a long, long time.
JM: So, what are some of the other things that you did as Mayor, considering that you were running a full time job on the side?
DP: My wife could probably tell you more than I could.
JP: They’d knock on the door.
JM: They knew where you lived.
JP: When he was boss, they all had their little troubles. He’d have to straighten them out, you know.
JM: How many people were working for the City at that time?
DP: I don’t know, but we had the City Hall up there.
JP: Up where the Museum is, wasn’t it up in that building?
DP: Yeah, yeah
JM: Oh! Okay! One side was the City and the other was the County Courthouse.
DP: That was City Hall.
JM: Oh, where you had the jail in the back.
DP: We had a City Attorney. I won’t mention any names. He couldn’t, uh. I believe in education, you know. I’m thoroughly not against education. He was an attorney, you know. The Council had very plainly told him what he was to do and what he wasn’t to do, okay? Because he thought that, being as he was an attorney, and us a bunch of honkeys, you know, like us, didn’t know much. Finally, I got a belly full of it. I told him, I said, “I want you go out. Leave the Council room, go out there in the front and write your letter of resignation.” He said, “What do you mean?” I said, “Just what I said. I want a letter of resignation.” So, he went back and he had a bunch of legalese in it, you know, and all that stuff. And I said, “That’s not what I told you to do. I’m giving you a chance to resign. You’re either going to resign or you’re going to get fired! And I don’t think you want that being fired on your resume.” So, I said, “Go back out, bring it in again.” So he still tried. I said, “Come with me.” We went out and I just wrote it out for him, you know, and then I said, “Now sign that damned thing.” He never did get over that, did he Dear?
JP: No
DP: Never did.
JP: It was really neat living back in the 60s-70s. Everybody knew everybody, you know. It was really neat.
JM: Yeah, let’s see, we had the Paint Pony and what? We had that little place down there by the Porter House. Where else did we have that people could stay at those days?
JP: The Thunderbird?
JM: Oh, the Thunderbird, yeah. Was that always called the Thunderbird?
JP: As long as I ever knew.
JM: Oh! And Maxwell’s! Maxwell House!
DP: Yeah Maxwell House
JP: And the Kiva Motel. We had some good friends that owned that.
JM: Do you remember when Mohammed Ali was here?
DP: Oh, yes!
JM: That’s one of those things I ask people. “Do you remember when?” And they always have some story on encountering him – like in the middle of the night running down the road or something.
DP: I was Mayor when he was here.
JM: Oh! Okay! He was only up here for about, was it weeks or months that he was training?
DP: Uh, he wasn’t here but . . .
JP: Just weeks, I think
JM: Was he Cassius Clay or was he Mohammed Ali?
DP: Cassius Clay, I believe, yeah, I think so, yeah.
JM: People say he’d run down to the airport. I guess he had a place where he worked out there and then he’d run back. Oh, who was it, (Larry) Whipple told me that he almost ran over him making a turn out of Old Linden Road and almost ran into him. He was just running up the road.
DP: My favorite was Winkie. We used to do a lot of cooking together, Winkie and I did.
JM: Dutch Ovens?
DP: Yeah, Dutch oven and Deep-pit barbequing and stuff, you know. All my Dutch ovens are over in New Mexico.
JM: Oh! That’s a safe place. (Laughter) Hey! That’s what Grumpy Jake’s is about, isn’t it? That’s fabulous food!
DP: Well, I’ve got uh
JP: Chicken dinners over here in the Dutch oven – and biscuits!
JM: Over at the Masons? That’s good!
DP: Yep, I’ve got two 16” bread ovens and I’ve got two 12” bread ovens. Then I’ve got a deep 14 that I, you know, I use for stew and stuff like that. You get your coals good,
JM: Consistently hot
DP: Yeah, and you get your dough made up and cut your biscuits and put a little lard in there to where you can put your biscuit in there and flip it up and turn it over, see, to where you get . . . You know you just put enough in there to where you can put the biscuit in there and then turn it over, see. And so you’ve got . . .
JM: So that it’s oiled.
DP: You’ve got oil on the bottom and the top, see. You have your bed of coals out there and you take and put your lid on your Dutch oven. Take about oh, you do about on a 16” oven, it would take about 3 good shovels of hot coals set on top, see. And then have enough there on the – I always dig a little hole, see, and put your coals in that hole. Set your oven down in there with the lid on it. And you’ve got your “gauncho” there -- that’s what that deal that you handle.
JM: The handle that pulls it up.
DP: Look under there and you can tell how they’re coming along.
JM: You have no idea what the temperature is. I mean we’re all used to little thermostats, you know.
DP: Yeah, I’ve, boy I’ve cooked a many a one. Winkie Whipple and I used to have contests. And then Loy Varnell, he worked for the Indians, the Apaches, for years and years and years and years, you know. And he taught me how to, actually, how to Dutch oven cook, you know.
JM: Oh he did? Yeah, there’s a knack to it.
DP: I’ll tell you a story that he used to tell on me. He used Calumet and I use Clabber Girl baking powder. So, we were out at the Lodge, the Masonic Lodge. We used to have outdoor degrees a number of years ago, and what I call Buckaloo Springs. We’d do a Third Degree out there and we’d be gone about three days wouldn’t we Dear? A day to get out there and a day to do the Degree and a day to get things packed up and bring back, you know. But something happened to mine. I don’t know if it was my baking powder or what, but it didn’t do worth a crap. I mean it was just! So ol’ Loy he told this story, cooked this story up on me. He said, “Yeah, you know, one day you and that Clabber Girl baking powder.” He said, “He had her all made and got those biscuits in there.” He said, “They didn’t raise, so he took the oven out quite a ways over there away from camp and took the lid off.” He said, “He went out to get it and the squirrels, a groundhog or something, had taken the biscuits out and put horse turds in it. Dave came back to camp, and the next morning he went out there.” He said, “The squirrels or chipmunks or whatever it was put the biscuits back in and took the horse turds with them.” (Laughter)
JM: They were better off with the horse! Oh that’s terrible!
DP: Loy really liked to
JM: Give you a bad time.
DP: He liked to tell that story. (Laughter).

Click tabs to swap between content that is broken into logical sections.

The opinions expressed in this interview are those of the interviewee only. They do not represent the views of the Show Low Historical Society Museum. Please contact the Show Low Historical Society Museum with questions about the use and reproduction of this resource.

JM: You must have been doing some civic things. You said, is that when you got involved with the Masons?
DP: I uh, Damn, I’m ashamed of myself now. I can’t even tell when I joined the Masons. ’62?
JP: No
DP: No?
JP: We just barely got married in ’62. I don’t remember what year you became a Mason. You worked very hard in it. He was secretary over there from . . .
DP: Fifteen years
JP: Yeah
JM: Originally, the Masons were up at Holbrook or Winslow or someplace.
DP: Well, they’re still there, yeah.
JM: Were you going there when they moved down?
DP: No, huh uh, we started at this Lodge here, yeah.
JM: Do you know Hal Butler?
DP: Oh yeah! Yeah.
JM: He told me that he was involved when it was up there as well.
DP: Yeah, in Holbrook, yeah, but he, Hal belongs here.
JP: I’m trying to remember when you became a Mason.
DP: I was Grand Master in 1990.
JM: That was 17 years ago.
DP to JP: ’72?
JP: It might have been in the ‘70s
DP: Yeah, I think it was in ’72 when I went in. A real dear friend of mine by the name of Jim Clark, J.R. Clark, he lives in Albuquerque. They lived over there in New Mexico. Anyway, when my dad died he had a Masonic service. I wasn’t a Mason then.
JM: But your dad was.
DP: Yeah, and so they had Masons out of Silver City and Masons out of Magdalena did the Masonic service for him, you know. And so when it was all over we -- my sister-in-law, my oldest brother and his wife, they had kind of a family meeting, like after a funeral, you know. And so this friend ours, J.R. Clark. All of us Porter boys were lined up out on the. It was in wintertime but the weather wasn’t too bad. But anyway, we were out there along the fence, you know. And he walked up to us and he said, “You dirty bunch of so-and-sos!” And boy, I just stopped like that. “You ought to be ashamed of yourselves!” And I don’t know whether it was my oldest brother or next to him. He said, “What the hell do you mean?” He said, “There at that burial for you dad. That was old brother Masons from Silver City and Magdalena came down here to give him a Masonic burial and there wasn’t a damned one of you there with an apron on.” So I got one pretty quick! Yeah.
JM: How do you become a Mason? Can you just join up or do you have to be sponsored, or what?
DP: Well, you have to ask. At least, that’s the way it used to be. I’m not real sure anymore. You don’t solicit. You become a Mason on your own free will and accord. You ask for an application and, you know, they investigate you. They don’t do near as good a job nowadays as they used to.
JM: What’s the difference between a Mason and a Shriner?
DP: The Shrine does a lot of good. You know, I give them credit for that. And I probably shouldn’t say this, but when you become a Shriner, you lose a lot of Masonry. That’s my opinion only. You know, I don’t have.
JM: It’s just different.
DP: Well, you know they do an awful lot, cripple children’s hospitals and things like that. They do a lot of good. But I could never be a Shriner.
JM: Well, I guess you don’t have to be; you can be what you want to be.
DP: That’s right, that’s right, yeah. Master Mason, that’s as far as I’m concerned that’s the highest degree in Masonry is when you become a Master Mason.
JM: Well, there have been some great men in the United States that were Masons.
DP: Oh you bet, yeah, you bet.
JM: I think George Washington was one, wasn’t he?
DP: Sure was! You betcha
JM: Was Benjamin Franklin one?
DP: Yep he was.
JM: I thought so, I wasn’t sure.
DP: Have you ever been back East to Washington Memorial? We’ve been fortune enough to see. When I was Grand Master we did a lot of traveling, didn’t we, Dear?
JM: That kept you busy?
DP: Oh yeah, well, we ran a business and
JM: Did you have family? Did you have kids too?
JP: We had one boy.
DP: Yeah
JM: What’s his name?
JP: Michael Allen
JM: Is he here in this area?
JP: He’s in New York
JM: Oh, my gosh!
DP to JP: Have you got a picture of him?
JP: It’s right here, Honey.
DP: I was wondering about the other two also.
JP: There’s his five boys.
JM: Nice guy! He had five boys?
JP: Yes
JM: Why, he kept the family tradition going here, huh?
DP: He inherited three of them and then he had twins.
JP: He inherited two! Dear! He had Matthew
JM: These two look like the mother here. Are those the ones that he inherited?
JP: No, these two little creeps right down here.
JM: Oh! Those are the twins though aren’t they?
JP: And this boy is from his first wife, then he adopted these two.
JM: Okay, are they related? I mean they look alike.
JP: They’re brothers.
JM: I mean they look like her.
JP: Yeah, they’re her children
JM: Okay, you said adopted. Well, it’s a nice mix! All boys.
JP: He’s sure done a good job with them, I’ll tell you. This boy here, we’ve been praying and carrying on. He has lymphoma.
DP: We about lost him.
JP: He just got out last Sunday, out of the hospital, and he has to take chemotherapy treatments. A pretty good guy!
JM: Yes, it looks like a good family. So you raised your boy here in Show Low and he went to Show Low High School and all that?
DP: Yep
JP: He was an
DP: All-star catcher. State
JP: State
DP: Allstate catcher
JM: Sports! Were you into sports too?
JP: My dad was.
DP: Her dad was. He almost made what? Tried out for the Cardinals, wasn’t he?
JM: Did your son go to college?
JP: He started at Prescott and he and his girlfriend had Matthew, and they got married. And then they got a divorce. We belong to the Mail Carriers Association and we took him everywhere we went and to all the national meetings, and he met this girl from New York. Her dad was a member of the Mail Carriers. And they got married and had had those two boys. Now he has one graduated from Tempe last year and he’s got one graduating. My son's going to New Mexico . . .
JM: That’s an investment! All those tuitions!
DP: Yep
JP: He works for his father-in-law. He’s a mail carrier also.
DP: Something that is really interesting, you know, was in 1967 a huge snowstorm. Have you heard people talk about that? Sixty-seven inches in Show Low. Snow piled down the middle of the streets, you know? About 15 feet high, and you couldn’t see even a tractor-trailer on the other side of that pile of snow.
JM: I’ll bet it was fun hauling the mail then!
DP: Yeah
JP: We’d get up every morning and all the trucks were stuck.
JM: Did it just dump all at once?
JP: No, it snowed for two weeks.
DP: Yeah, about two weeks. Oh God, it was terrible. My wife and I took the first bread into Winslow and Holbrook after 10 days of no bread.
JP: He had been working around the clock for days and days. And so we went to Globe and got it. They brought it to Globe. And he couldn’t drive any longer. So I steered the truck and he shifted when I needed.
JM: Oh, my gosh! You’re coming up through the Salt River Canyon?
DP: Yep, right there in the Salt River Canyon!
JM: In all that snow and ice? Oh!
JP: We went to Winslow like that. He’d shift and I was in the driver’s seat. He was worn out. He was so tired.
JM: You were hauling bread? Why bread instead of mail?
JP: Well, they hired us to take the bread because we had a big enough truck. That was besides the mail. That was just the (giggles).
DP: Yeah, we done it all.
JP: We hauled all the papers up here too.
DP: Yeah
JM: So Winslow and Holbrook was snowed in as bad, because that’s, well that was before Highway 40, right? It was just Route 66. The trains from there? You would think that they would be more accessible than Show Low!
JP: Yeah, you would have thought it, but they didn’t have any bread 10 days wasn’t it? I can’t remember.
JM: And those little old ladies couldn’t remember how to make bread?
DP: Well, you know they had, the stores, they kind of rationed stuff on their own, you know. We had Nicks
JM: Nick’s Market, yeah?
JP: Nick’s Market and Kings Market.
DP: Nick’s Market and Kings Market -- that was it!
JP: We had drivers staying in our home that couldn’t get home. It was awful!
DP: The next I say here to talk about is Show Low City Park. They first had commissioners.
JM: Right, there was like five of them, wasn’t there?
DP: I went to Washington D.C. to see about getting, you know where the City Park is out here now? Yeah, I grew up over in New Mexico and one of the families over there, well they had been involved with the Forest Service for a long time. Anyway this one, of the Schneider family. I went to Washington DC and I convinced the United States Forest Service, in particular, the head forester, Bill Schneider. He was the head forester of the whole Forest Service of the United States. He came from Reserve, New Mexico. I convinced Head Forester Bill Schneider to make a land exchange so we could obtain the City Park land. That’s how come we got that part out there. And we, you might say we stole it, you know, really.
JM: Okay! You might say that?
DP: Because they had to have equal acreage, you know? So there was a piece of land out, do you know before you get to Pinedale?
JM: Oh, I would say, you should give them Clay Springs! I’d give them Clay Springs!
DP: Yeah! But anyway, they had a, there was a piece of land out there that they would swap, acre for acre. And so that’s, I forget now, do you remember how much we had to pay for that? It almost made me feel bad, because we stole it, really you might say.
JM: Well, they probably saw it that it was inevitable that Show Low was going to be growing.
DP: But we got that, I got that piece of land out there and we had an even swap. We got Show Low City Park for that land out there by Clay Springs/Pinedale.
JM: Probably the stuff that the Rodeo-Chedeski burned up.
DP: Well, we uh, talk about that Rodeo-Chedeski. We’d been carrying the mail from Show Low to Cibecue since 1962, and the guy that set that fire. The Indian that set it, they caught up there by the rodeo grounds at Cibecue and then the Chedeski part was set by this camper. She set a fire to try to get their attention? She got their attention all right? What was it, 365,000 acres something or other that?
JP: It was awful
JM: So did they put you on the Commission, or did they?
DP: I don’t even, let’s see, who was it that talked me into running? We each had a you know, certain. . .
JM: Something that you were over. I see.
JP: Yes
DP: Yeah
JM: You got their attention by working on the Park.
DP: Uh hum, yeah I was
JM: That’s a nice park. People use it a lot.
DP: Yeah, it is, yeah. I served on the City Council for 8 years, the last 2 as mayor of Show Low. I improved the water and sewer system and improved streets when funds were available.
JM: And this was in the 60’s or 70’s?
DP: Uh, later 60s. I don’t know, a period there of several years. I along with other citizens built the Little League and Senior League parks. APS furnished the poles and Buck Sumerlin, have you ever heard that name? Sumerlin? They still live here in town, did the wiring. Are you familiar with the park out here?
JM: Uh huh
DP: Do you know down below where the ball field is there? Anyway, I can’t think of that guy’s name that laid all those blocks for us. You know, we did all that with – you know you’d ask somebody it they would help you out and they would. There were only two enemies I made. I won’t mention any names, but there were two women. I coached their kids. They’d come along the first baseline, you know. We had a fence but they’d, and they’d bitch and holler and bitch and holler. And finally, one day I told them. I said, “You know what?” I went down there. “If you’re so damned smart, you just get your asses up there and you manage that team and you practice them and everything.” I said, “I’m clear up to here with you! Either do something or get the hell out of here!”
JM: And take your kids with you! So you were an umpire or you were a coach?
DP: Yeah
JM: And you coached baseball, or softball, I mean?
DP: Baseball
JM: Baseball
DP: Uh hum. I, along with other citizens, built the Little League and Senior League parks. APS furnished the poles and Buck Sumerlin did the wiring. Mr. Henry Freeze put in many, many hours overseeing the park, games, umpires and anything else that we needed. He was a Mexican fellow, wasn’t he?
JP: He was Mexican. His business was carpet. He sold carpet and laid it.
DP: Yeah, but I wanted to get his name in there because he did . . .
JM: Over and above
DP: Yeah, he sure did! Yeah, he and Buck Sumerlin also. APS, we did a little arm-twisting. They brought poles up and set them.
JM: That’s a major expense.
DP: Yeah, and Buck climbed up there and did all the wiring. That was a community effort. Then I followed Dave Foil as mayor, and Joy Harding followed me as first lady mayor, first and only, I guess. See, they live right behind.
JM: Right behind you! Did she live there then? Have you lived here a long time?
JP: No. Well, since 1990
JM: Oh! Well, that’s a while, 17 years.
JP: Yeah, that’s true. We were behind our business many years, White Mountain Passenger Lines.
JM: Off of Hall
DP: Yep, this house sat back down there behind the . . .
JM: Oh this it? You moved it up here. Wow, that solves that problem, huh?
DP: And we added to it, you know.
JM: Yeah, its very comfortable looking.
DP: Do you know Joy Harding?
JM: No. She’s down in Mesa, you say? They winter there?
JP: They’re down there now. It’s a beautiful home here.
DP: Yeah, they’re good neighbors, really good neighbors. Joy and I had that connection there with the City.
JM: Was she on the Council before as well?
DP: Yeah
JM: I’m not sure how they make mayors here.
DP: Well, it used to be, you know, you let everybody run for Council, then the Council would elect the mayor, see. But now, then they . . .
JP: That was just since Fernau, isn’t it?
JM: Just since Fernau?
JP: Yeah, just since him, I think.
DP: Yeah, yeah I think so.
JP: That they elect the mayor?
DP: Yeah, elect the mayor. I liked the other way better, myself.
JM: Were the Council knew they were going to get somebody they could work with.
DP: Yeah
JM: And then there’s the City Manager, too, right?
DP: Yeah, who was our first City Manager, do you know? The mayor was the manager.
JM: Were you the manager as well?
DP: Oh yeah, yeah when I was . . .
JP: The boss
DP: Boss! Yeah! I think it’s a mistake, myself, but anyway, a lot of people aren’t going to agree with this, but I think Show Low and its citizens were happier, safer and more prosperous than we are today.
JM: I don’t know what the idea is for keeping it with no industry up here. What’s the idea, just to make it a retirement community?
DP: I guess! We sure don’t have any industry!
JM: You have to bring your own money to live here.
DP: Yeah, we fortunate. We have
JP: Yeah, we were boss!
JM: Yeah! Nobody could fire you! Well, the U.S. Government, I guess, but.
JP: We put in the hours though.
DP: You bet!
JP: 6 to 6:30
JM: It’s good that you both worked it together so. You wouldn’t have made it otherwise. So, did you learn to drive the big rigs -- other than with him shifting?
JP: I drove; I helped him out, you know. And when the boys that signed up to go to the Service, he’d take a bus and I’d take a car. I had a mail route too, I had from here to what was it? Forest?
DP: Forestdale
JM: Forestdale? Down the road here?
JP: On the Rim. Yeah, I went to Cibecue, just . . .
JM: You said it was White Mountain Passenger Lines, so that’s the one that – isn’t there still one running?
JP: Uh huh
JM: That’s the one that goes down to Whiteriver and circles.
JP: They don’t have as many routes as we did.
JM: There’s a route that came up from Globe. That’s how you came to Show Low from Globe on the bus, wasn’t it.
JP: On the truck, double-seated truck.
JM: No, I mean for passengers.
JP: Oh, well we had uh, passengers rode that double-seated truck.
JM: Did they really?
DP: Oh yeah
JP: Oh, we had a big truck! And it had two seats, and we could haul. Then we had a route that went from, you know, here to Phoenix, on in to Phoenix.
JM: You ran the truck too, hauling the mail too.
JP: It was on a van. We had a bunch of seats.
DP: I did a rough estimate here not too long ago that the best that I can figure is I’ve got over 6 million miles and not a chargeable accident.
JM: That’s great!
DP: Yeah
JM: That is great. That’s very fortunate.
DP: Did you look at my Bible over there?
JM: No, this big one?
DP: Yeah, that’s my Porter Family Bible.
JM: Oh! It’s got all the skinny in it.
DP: You look in there. It goes way back to
JM: It looks like an old one all right.
DP: Oh, it is! Yeah.
JM: Let’s see, I’ll have to look between Malachi and Matthew to get the good stuff. I shouldn’t say that, it’s all good stuff.
DP: Look in the front.
JM: So you go to a church?
DP: Well, not as often as we should. My wife’s a Baptist and I was kind of a Methodist, you know, so we, but we consider ourselves Christians. Look at some of those signatures.
JM: Oh yeah, yep, those are, it goes and goes and goes! 1803! Wow! And that’s on your mother’s side – there’s Cook, not Camp, but Cook. You could have been a Cook! It doesn’t say where though, that would have been an important thing.
DP: They all migrated out here from North Carolina and Tennessee, my dad’s. My mother’s, oh let’s see, New Mexico, over around Roswell and in there.
JM: So when they all came, they came a big extended family came?
DP: Well, the Porters, my Grandpa and Grandma Porter came out. I think they were about the only ones that came out. My grandmother on my mother’s side, Grandma Gamble, she had a boardinghouse at Lincoln.
JM: In New Mexico? Lincoln County?
DP: The town of Lincoln, you know. Anyway, she ran this boarding house and served a couple meals a day, you know, like maybe breakfast and supper I guess. Of course, nobody had dinner then, you know, it was just
JM: Supper!
DP: Breakfast, dinner and supper, you know! Grandma Gamble used to tell the story about she had uh. You’ve heard about Billy the Kid haven’t you?
JM: I was going to ask you that! He’s famous for Lincoln, New Mexico!
DP: Yeah! Right yeah!
JM: Yes, 1885 I think
DP: Well, she, yeah, see uh, she served him meals!
JM: I’ll bet she did. I’ll bet he came and went there. She knew that other guy too, uh, what was his name that shot him? Garrett! Pat Garrett!
DP: Yeah, Pat Garrett! He was the sheriff.
JM: He was the one that shot Billy the Kid.
DP: Yeah!
JM: So he was the sheriff of that area so she knew him too!
DP: Yeah! Grandma, she served meals see, because she’d lost her, Indians had killed her husband. She was at Roswell and her husband had gone out hunting or whatever. Anyway, he never did come back. His horse came back and then they figured it out that the Indians had got him. So she opened this boarding house. She told the story about, I think she was feeding six guys. She had seven pork chops on, you know. So, she served beans and some kind of meat, you know, and of course, biscuits and all this stuff. Anyway, she told the story about this. In the summertime it was kind of warm and she had the windows open. Everybody was eating and there was one pork chop left on the plate. So the wind blew the lamp out and when they lit the lamp and one guy had six forks in his hand! (Laughter)
JM: He grabbed and they stabbed!
DP: What else can I tell you about?
JM: What else is there?
JP: The Board of Directors of the Mail Carriers Association. He is Sectional Director. He is over 8 states, right? And he had to make these presentations twice a year, Spring and Winter/Fall. And he would have to go to these meetings, state meetings.
JM: Like all over the West Coast someplace? Was it West Coast?
DP: Mountain area
JM: Mountain area?
DP: Colorado, Wyoming, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico.
JP: Maybe it was 6, okay. We done a lot of travel for the organization and then he was working his way up to be Grand Master all over the country. We had a, we really had a good life. I mean we just!
JM: Yeah, you were travelers! Even when you were home you were traveling.
JP: I guess! I don’t know how we did it all.
JM: And you’re still doing it too, huh? So, you retired from being the mayor.
DP: Oh, yeah, I haven’t been on the Council for a long time.
JM: I learned something about you! When you became the mayor, then that was when David Foil was running for reelection and you tied. And the story is that you played the card game again? The Show Low card game that, and we see that the winner wasn’t Foil, so it must have been you!
DP: Show low and take it!
JM: So you pulled the low card! Was it a deuce?
DP: Deuce of clubs! (Laughter)
JM: It really was! Oh, my gosh! That’s so unique for Show Low, you know, to solve problems!
DP: Oh yeah! Yeah, Dave and I, we’ve been friends for a long, long time.
JM: So, what are some of the other things that you did as Mayor, considering that you were running a full time job on the side?
DP: My wife could probably tell you more than I could.
JP: They’d knock on the door.
JM: They knew where you lived.
JP: When he was boss, they all had their little troubles. He’d have to straighten them out, you know.
JM: How many people were working for the City at that time?
DP: I don’t know, but we had the City Hall up there.
JP: Up where the Museum is, wasn’t it up in that building?
DP: Yeah, yeah
JM: Oh! Okay! One side was the City and the other was the County Courthouse.
DP: That was City Hall.
JM: Oh, where you had the jail in the back.
DP: We had a City Attorney. I won’t mention any names. He couldn’t, uh. I believe in education, you know. I’m thoroughly not against education. He was an attorney, you know. The Council had very plainly told him what he was to do and what he wasn’t to do, okay? Because he thought that, being as he was an attorney, and us a bunch of honkeys, you know, like us, didn’t know much. Finally, I got a belly full of it. I told him, I said, “I want you go out. Leave the Council room, go out there in the front and write your letter of resignation.” He said, “What do you mean?” I said, “Just what I said. I want a letter of resignation.” So, he went back and he had a bunch of legalese in it, you know, and all that stuff. And I said, “That’s not what I told you to do. I’m giving you a chance to resign. You’re either going to resign or you’re going to get fired! And I don’t think you want that being fired on your resume.” So, I said, “Go back out, bring it in again.” So he still tried. I said, “Come with me.” We went out and I just wrote it out for him, you know, and then I said, “Now sign that damned thing.” He never did get over that, did he Dear?
JP: No
DP: Never did.
JP: It was really neat living back in the 60s-70s. Everybody knew everybody, you know. It was really neat.
JM: Yeah, let’s see, we had the Paint Pony and what? We had that little place down there by the Porter House. Where else did we have that people could stay at those days?
JP: The Thunderbird?
JM: Oh, the Thunderbird, yeah. Was that always called the Thunderbird?
JP: As long as I ever knew.
JM: Oh! And Maxwell’s! Maxwell House!
DP: Yeah Maxwell House
JP: And the Kiva Motel. We had some good friends that owned that.
JM: Do you remember when Mohammed Ali was here?
DP: Oh, yes!
JM: That’s one of those things I ask people. “Do you remember when?” And they always have some story on encountering him – like in the middle of the night running down the road or something.
DP: I was Mayor when he was here.
JM: Oh! Okay! He was only up here for about, was it weeks or months that he was training?
DP: Uh, he wasn’t here but . . .
JP: Just weeks, I think
JM: Was he Cassius Clay or was he Mohammed Ali?
DP: Cassius Clay, I believe, yeah, I think so, yeah.
JM: People say he’d run down to the airport. I guess he had a place where he worked out there and then he’d run back. Oh, who was it, (Larry) Whipple told me that he almost ran over him making a turn out of Old Linden Road and almost ran into him. He was just running up the road.
DP: My favorite was Winkie. We used to do a lot of cooking together, Winkie and I did.
JM: Dutch Ovens?
DP: Yeah, Dutch oven and Deep-pit barbequing and stuff, you know. All my Dutch ovens are over in New Mexico.
JM: Oh! That’s a safe place. (Laughter) Hey! That’s what Grumpy Jake’s is about, isn’t it? That’s fabulous food!
DP: Well, I’ve got uh
JP: Chicken dinners over here in the Dutch oven – and biscuits!
JM: Over at the Masons? That’s good!
DP: Yep, I’ve got two 16” bread ovens and I’ve got two 12” bread ovens. Then I’ve got a deep 14 that I, you know, I use for stew and stuff like that. You get your coals good,
JM: Consistently hot
DP: Yeah, and you get your dough made up and cut your biscuits and put a little lard in there to where you can put your biscuit in there and flip it up and turn it over, see, to where you get . . . You know you just put enough in there to where you can put the biscuit in there and then turn it over, see. And so you’ve got . . .
JM: So that it’s oiled.
DP: You’ve got oil on the bottom and the top, see. You have your bed of coals out there and you take and put your lid on your Dutch oven. Take about oh, you do about on a 16” oven, it would take about 3 good shovels of hot coals set on top, see. And then have enough there on the – I always dig a little hole, see, and put your coals in that hole. Set your oven down in there with the lid on it. And you’ve got your “gauncho” there -- that’s what that deal that you handle.
JM: The handle that pulls it up.
DP: Look under there and you can tell how they’re coming along.
JM: You have no idea what the temperature is. I mean we’re all used to little thermostats, you know.
DP: Yeah, I’ve, boy I’ve cooked a many a one. Winkie Whipple and I used to have contests. And then Loy Varnell, he worked for the Indians, the Apaches, for years and years and years and years, you know. And he taught me how to, actually, how to Dutch oven cook, you know.
JM: Oh he did? Yeah, there’s a knack to it.
DP: I’ll tell you a story that he used to tell on me. He used Calumet and I use Clabber Girl baking powder. So, we were out at the Lodge, the Masonic Lodge. We used to have outdoor degrees a number of years ago, and what I call Buckaloo Springs. We’d do a Third Degree out there and we’d be gone about three days wouldn’t we Dear? A day to get out there and a day to do the Degree and a day to get things packed up and bring back, you know. But something happened to mine. I don’t know if it was my baking powder or what, but it didn’t do worth a crap. I mean it was just! So ol’ Loy he told this story, cooked this story up on me. He said, “Yeah, you know, one day you and that Clabber Girl baking powder.” He said, “He had her all made and got those biscuits in there.” He said, “They didn’t raise, so he took the oven out quite a ways over there away from camp and took the lid off.” He said, “He went out to get it and the squirrels, a groundhog or something, had taken the biscuits out and put horse turds in it. Dave came back to camp, and the next morning he went out there.” He said, “The squirrels or chipmunks or whatever it was put the biscuits back in and took the horse turds with them.” (Laughter)
JM: They were better off with the horse! Oh that’s terrible!
DP: Loy really liked to
JM: Give you a bad time.
DP: He liked to tell that story. (Laughter).